Use of Cost-Adjusted Importance Measures for Aircraft System Maintenance Optimization

The development of an aircraft maintenance planning optimization tool and its application to an aircraft component is presented. Various reliability concepts and approaches have been analyzed, together with objective criteria which can be used to optimize the maintenance planning of an aircraft system, subsystem or component. Wolfram® Mathematica v10.3 9 (Witney, UK) has been used to develop the novel optimization tool, the application of which is expected to yield significant benefits in selecting the most appropriate maintenance intervention based on objective criteria, in estimating the probability of nonscheduled maintenance and in estimating the required number of spare components for both scheduled and nonscheduled maintenance. As such, the results of the application of the tool can be used to assist the risk planning process for future system malfunctions, providing safe projections to facilitate the supply chain of the end user of the system, resulting in higher aircraft fleet operational availability.